Grimwild — Cinematic heroic fantasy on a d6 pool

"Grab the highest die and pray the thorns stay quiet."

Free

Diced6 pool + d8 thorns

Players3–5

Prep~20 min

Foundry VTTCommunity

Complexity

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What is this system

Grimwild (2024) is a heroic fantasy RPG by J. D. Maxwell and Oddity Press: familiar classes like the fighter, rogue and wizard, run on a Blades in the Dark-style engine. Roll a pool of d6, read the highest die, and let the GM add d8 'thorns' for difficulty. The CC BY 4.0 Free Edition won the 2025 gold ENnie for Best Free Product. The designer went silent in 2025, and the community has since released a free Community Edition.

Is it for your table?

Pick it if

you want classic fighter-rogue-wizard fantasy on a Blades-style engine
your group likes drawing the world map together during play
you want a free, light system with quick d6-pool rolls

Skip it if

you want detailed tactical combat with precise numbers
the GM prefers a fully prepared world to co-creating it at the table
your group dislikes complications landing on most rolls

Setting

No fixed setting: classic adventure fantasy with dungeons, ruins and wild country. The party and GM draw the region, settlements and even dungeons together during play, as nodes and paths in a pointcrawl. Published modules and other settings port in easily.

What it looks like at the table

The rogue climbs the tower wall before the guards turn around. Agility 2 plus one spark — 3d6. The stones are slick, so the GM adds one d8 thorn for difficulty. The dice show 6, 3, 2 — perfect… but the thorn lands on 8 and cuts it to messy. The rogue reaches the roof, and the GM makes an impact move: a tile clatters into the courtyard. The GM rolls the 4d6 'Alarm' pool: 1, 5, 2, 6 — the two dice under 4 drop out, two remain. When the pool is empty, the guards arrive.

Playstyle

Combat Exploration Narrative Fantasy

Key mechanics

Perfect, messy, grim

Roll a d6 pool and keep only the highest die: 6 is perfect (clean success), 4–5 is messy (success with trouble), 1–3 is grim (failure with trouble). Two or more 6s is a critical, which can't be cut.

Thorns

Difficulty isn't a penalty to your dice — it's d8 thorns added to the pool. A 7 or 8 on a thorn cuts the result one step. A grim result cut by a thorn becomes a disaster, and the player gains spark.

Diminishing pools

Clocks are replaced by pools of d6. When an event advances, the GM rolls the pool and removes every die showing 1–3. When the pool is empty, something happens: the guards show up, the bridge collapses, an ability runs dry.

Spark and story

Spark is protagonist fuel: each one adds +1d to a roll, earned from disasters and resolved story arcs. Twice per session a player can add a detail about their character to the scene, and the party expands the world map with shared tokens.

What people say

It’s not an indie version of D&D, it’s a version of D&D that’s delivering on the playstyle and the tropes of D&D in a distilled and easy to grasp package.— Aaron Marks, Cannibal Halfling Gaming

Clocks are replaced by Diminishing Pools, a mechanic I rather like.— Aaron Marks, Cannibal Halfling Gaming

Art & materials